DVUSD Governing Board Meeting, May 25, 2021

001all right I'd like to welcome you to the regular governing board meeting we will um call the meeting to order at 7 p.m. please let the roll call show that all board members are in attendance Mrs Reed is participating uh via telephone and if you'll join me and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and then a moment of silence United States can I have a motion for adoption of agenda um I would make a motion that the governing board adopt the agenda with the exception of moving action item 6E directly following item 2E which is the adoption of the agenda do I have a second second all those in favor please say I I I I any Nays hearing none the motion passes unanimously we'll go to O sorry all right we'll move to action

002item 6E I would make a motion that the governing board approved the recommendation for the principal of Stetson Hills for Britney Dy herden second we have a motion in a second i'' like to go to Mrs Moffett for the introduction president O'Brien governing board members superintendent Finch and all guests I'd like to introduce to you Britney Dyer hurden who is to my right Brittney is currently um the assistant principal at Diamond Canyon Ka area and she is our recommended candidate for this position and we're thrilled to have her in this role we know that she'll do an excellent job wonderful do a board members have any questions or comments I kind of like her family to stand up real [Music] quick thank you so much for joining us this evening family all right hearing no

003discussion or comments then I will call for a vote all those in favor please say I I I I any Nays hearing none the motion passes unanimously congratulations um Britney would you like to step to the podium and say a word or two I just want to say thank you um thank you for the opportunity for believing in me and I excited um to get to know the staff and community at Stetson Hills and I am proud to be a stallion so thank you thank you congratulations [Applause] again wonderful we're going to move into our district reports this evening we have a dvusd professional Learning Community Journey um presentation and I will turn it over to Dr Tunis thank you um president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch we are proud to share with

004you tonight an update on our PLC journey in dvusd presenting with me tonight is PLC manager Amy Moore to my right and Robert Moore and and Megan Calhoun I'm sorry Robert Murray sorry see I can't go off script Robert Murray and Megan Calhoun who are two of our model PLC teacher leaders we began our PLC work in 2015 um at this time the majority of our Focus was on understanding why professional learning communities were important and impactful we had a few schools who ran with the idea of plc's and served as early adopters in fact in7 you may remember that Constitution was named a model PLC School leading the way for our district in the 2018 19 school year we increased our intensity with plc's and began working towards dedicated early release time and considering

005what we would need to put in place to create meaningful collaborative teams focused on student learning Dr gallagan led a stakeholder group that consisted of membership from just about every area in which you could imagine in our district um listed here are just a few of the department departments who joined us to consider the goals of our work as well as the actions that we would need to take collectively to be successful in our work in the same year our CIA Department worked with school level teams to develop agreed upon District essential standards this was the Catalyst for the next steps in our work thank you to the board for approving early release days in the spring of 2019 um in 201819 of the same same year we also created the model PLC teacher leader

006model and tonight you're going to hear from two of our model PLC teacher leaders and Mrs Moore is going to tell you a little bit more about the intention of this program in the same year we were able to add the PLC training team um so I have with us tonight um Mrs Moore as our manager and over here in the audience we have our PLC training team as well as our continuous Improvement specialist who have been doing a lot of this work and providing support for our schools you'll hear throughout the presentation about this support that they provide um for next year uh Dr gallagan has worked with all School level leaders to change the instructional minutes in our um K8 campuses to include time for all three tiers of intervention um this time

007is critical to fully Implement multi-tiered systems of support in our schools and it is really changing the work that we do um in responding to student needs um Britney dueling also had an idea to add a campus intervention coordinator to our campus um to each of our campuses so she's working with these campus intervention coordinators and training them on the interventions that we have vetted in our district as well as training them how to analyze the data so that she can share that data with school leadership teams so that they can better respond to student needs um and then finally um our staff development our principal staff development team of are probably six or seven in the audience here tonight um they work with us throughout the year year to backwards design professional development on

008plc's that we present to school leaders and then we also present the same PD to our model PLC teacher leaders so that we're all learning the same information consistently um but they identified a need for additional PLC time recognizing that this work was really important and in the spring with our 4-day holidays that we love um we were missing a lot of time together so um that information went out a few weeks ago of the additional time that we have ADD to the calendar here's a quote from our president of the governing board um just showing the importance of this PLC work in our district we've really focused our work on um two goals um one of them was the implementation of the PLC process districtwide and the other was developing a a collaborative culture

009through high performing teams so that's at the school level we've been we've been collecting data on this since 2018 um in in different fashion so at the districtwide implementation we're looking for our schools um to be developing or above um and that's the two highest um rankings on the rubric so you can see from 2018 to 2020 our school leaders rated us from a 133% and then at an 80% um two years later um our district leaders if you go to the right went from a 29% to a 76% now the highly effective teams that is about the work that our um collaborative teams are doing at the school level um and our school our school leaders who were really hard on themselves they they started off rating us as a 28% the work of

010their teams they went to a 73% but this year I think they really struggled with the fact that um it looked a little different and we did did spend a lot of time um responding and uh we're looking forward to getting back to um the work that we were able to do when we were in person full-time um our teachers however felt a little bit differently and you can see that their scores are increasing each year um feeling very confident about the work that they're doing in their teams I'm going to turn it over to Mrs bour president O'Brien Dr Finch members of the board one strategy we've vied microphone on testing oh you have to pull it closer thank you there you go better yeah all right here we go president O'Brien Dr Finch

011members of the board one strategy we have used to build capacity to all of our schools and collaborative teams is through our model PLC teacher leader framework each School sends one to two teams teachers as a model PLC teacher representative to training sessions facilitated by the Deer Valley plc C team this year we had two cohort groups 28 teachers in their first year of the program and 40 teachers who have been a part of this for two or three years as part of the two threeyear program teachers worked in partnership with their school leader to design an action research project I'd like to introduce you to two of our fabulous model PLC teacher leaders both from Sunrise they're here tonight to share with you a little bit about their journey and their PLC project introducing

012Rob Murray and Megan Calhoun president o' Brian board members Dr Finch and others professional learning communities plc's are used to cultivate leadership efficacy and drive student outcomes plc's are a form of professional development that provide an opportunity for distributed leadership knowledge sharing and continuous Improvement our PLC teacher model was led by Amy Moren and Shannon Young this year the purpose of the PLC teacher program this year was to one build School PLC capacity through distributed leadership two apply skills and content to our own collaborative teams three focus on data and GAP analysis and four help lead a PLC project in partnership with our school leader as a professional lead Learning Community our collaborative teams focused on four questions what do we want all students to know and be able to do how do we know

013when students have learned what do we do when students have not learned and then what do we do when students have already shown Mastery initially our meetings focused on developing the characteristics and ways to activate our collaborative teams we learned that an activator serves as a catalyst on our campus a catalyst is a person that precipitates an outcome an effective activator has the ability to challenge team members and themselves they truly believe that all students and all teachers can learn at high levels and they demonstrate resilience in especially challenging times participants like I mentioned in the model PLC teacher leader program had the opportunity to complete a project in one of two areas the two areas were protocols to effectively analyze data and second engaging tasks in a virtual Andor inperson setting my team Megan

014Calhoun and myself chose to focus on student engagement in collaboration with our principal Karen dial we identified our schools needs based on administrative classroom walkthroughs and observations we determined that the focus of our project should be on increasing achievement and engagement during social distancing in the classroom a team of early adopters were selected for Kagan classroom adaptations for covid-19 training periodic adapted Kagan structure implementation check-ins with grade level PLC leaders were completed by the model teacher team after examining unwrapped standards pre-test quantitative and qualitative data was gathered related to student achievement and engagement in math specific co9 adapted Kagan collaborative structures were chosen for implementation as the team moved through learning progressions following implementation post test data was collected for comparative purposes so students were surveyed on math attitudes before and after implementation of strategies

015data was consistent in some areas but showed impact positive impact in others in the following attitudes I enjoy learning math we saw an increase I can learn from other students we saw an increase there is only one way to solve math problems we saw a decrease I make mental pictures when I read math problems we saw an increase so prior to implementing Kagan strategies we asked students about their attitudes towards math and found comments such as I don't get what to do in math all the time I don't know math it's kind of hard I absolutely love love math but sometimes when I get an answer wrong my brain shuts down after implementing Kagan strategies we asked students again about their attitudes towards math and found comments such as I love math and it's fun

016but sometimes I get a question wrong but I learn from my mistakes I love when I get math wrong because it helps me learn I love math my favorite I love math but we need harder problems in our project we chose staff exemplars uh from early adopter group from various grade bands for a staff-wide presentation part of future lesson planning expectations include the use of Collaborative Learning structures regardless of in place social distancing protocols overall adopter overall conclusions we found overall adopters noticed higher levels of Engagement in the classroom once more students actually reported that they enjoyed the collaborative activities in learning not only did we see an improvement in students attitudes towards M during social social distancing using the adapted Kagan strategies but we also saw an improvement in assessment results we compared quantitative

017data from prior year common formative assessments where students were in person all year and found that the students achieved similar or better or better results if uh the second year this excuse me this is my second year in the model PLC teacher program the program has helped me to improve my teaching and be more intentional about my about outcomes Doug Fisher uses a great example most people wouldn't get on an airplane without knowing where it's going similarly students should be provided a clear map and expectations to know where they are headed academically and what Mastery looks like after completing three years in the model PLC te I have learned that collaboration amongst teachers is essential to moving students forward PLC helps students at all levels to increase learning and it happens when teams stay focused

018on the four guiding questions and make datadriven decisions in their instruction having participated and facilitated collaborative teams as they transition from the pre-initiation stage to the sustaining stage of development has proven to me that professional learning communities are invaluable to teachers we would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight told you they were told you they were fabulous thank you to both of you uh for sharing that and here from the voice of Dr Finch in his entire career the best professional development for moving students forward plc's and the key are teachers just like Megan and Robert in order to be effective in the work of collaborative teams teachers must have Clarity in what students need to know and be able to do therefore in the year of 201920 professional development centered

019around unwrapping standards using the teacher Clarity framework in the summer of 2020 38 schools chose 25 teachers to participate in unwrapping standards as we now focus our efforts towards analyzing student data and responding to the results trending now 180 teacher leaders are being trained this very week starting today and over 500 teachers will collaborate with the PLC training team in addition to hundreds who will be working with their campus admin throughout both June and July this is a small snapshot just of today our professional learning with approximately 60 team facilitators it was fantastic and a nice quote from a high school School Ela teacher the momentum was strong and then came Co we thought this was a very fitting visual for this slide even with the challenge 220 teachers from across the district kept our

020guaranteed and viable curriculum strong with creating their own online resources at all levels Deer Valley has Collective efficacy alignment and moving in the same direction on how we best meet the needs of all of our students together as a team so this spring we um decided it was time to apply to be a model PLC District so some of the information that we've shared um was in the application as well as the information that follows here part of it was highlighting our Awards um these these are just our high level Awards as you know from attending all the board meetings we um our our kids earn a lot of Awards as do our teachers and our staff um but here are a few that really stand out to us um as far as the data

021our data clearly shows trends of continuous Improvement through all grade levels in the district at the national level uh we consistently score higher than the national average on the ACT and SE in all content areas for State assessments um our Trend Remains the Same um I'm not I will highlight here just a few things there are a lot more highlights that we included in the application um but not only did our high school ninth grade students far exceed the state average in fy19 um they were 15% higher for Math and Ela but they also increased their proficiency rates from the previous year um from 2% to 8% and you might note that um at that time I believe three of our high schools would have been a part of project momentum now all five of

022our high schools are 8th grade science um DV students scored 24% higher than the state average and they consistently um score an 80% proficiency level Miss alred tells me fourth grade does um just as well maybe even just a little bit better U third through fifth grade students showed a 5 to six% incre six 6% increase in La between 2018 and 19 and our kindergarten students decreased from 30% to 14% for students needing intensive support from 2015 to um this year you know that we focused on the gap between our general education students and subpopulation so here is some of the data this is from our Benchmark data because we did not have um our state assessment data at the time from last year to this year um so it shows that 25 of our

023prek prek U Middle Schools closed the gap between general education and special education um along with four of our five high schools uh for El we closed the Gap with 16 of our K8 schools and three of our high schools and we closed the gap between Caucasian students and africanamerican students in 23 um K8 schools four high schools um between Caucasian students and Hispanic students um we closed the Gap in 20 pre8 schools and one high school so we know and we believe that all of the schools aligning their school goals to this District goal and working throughout the year to close the gap in our various subpopulations is making a difference um it's evident that the alignment of the goals in the focus on tier one and tier 2 instruction made a difference this

024year and will continue to do so in the future um as we focus even stronger on the mtss and PLC process so um we did receive the model PLC District Awards so we're very proud of that uh we do have have a website that our teachers can go to um actually um everyone can access it now it's now available to the public as well so if you have a chance to check out the resources that are provided from our team and um Dr galligan's team um it is it is uh pretty intensive um very a lot of resources here um and then if you click on the PLC locator from solution tree you can see these are all of the PLC model districts um that have received the award in the nation um these are

025district are size and so there are 11 in the nation um these awards are actually offered globally but no um schools no districts outside of the US have received the awards so we can say that we're one of 11 in the world um so we're pretty proud of really it's our our teachers and our principls and all of our departments um and all of the work that everyone does um for our students so thank you thank you all for your presentation this evening board members are there any or comments Mrs paperman well I would like to say as a classroom teacher the best about PLC is building that relationship with the grade level team collaborating communicating and looking at the reward of the progress throughout time thank you for the presentation Mrs orway okay there

026it goes it sticks great job I know it's summer kind of sort of for some of you but these uh results in what I think is a short period of time maybe because nothing is quick in education um it's just exciting and closing gaps um is something that we've been working on for a long time and this is not by accident so I don't know how many of you guys over there are here for this but thanks for coming coming or the same for your side so I guess PLC is working and thank you very much for putting the work in Mrs Fischer thank you for the report um having sat into plc's for several years um at other districts um it was just like is this doing any good you know because you don't

027know but all these years later to see a report where actually shows Deb that there is something that's you know that the outcome of the collaboration um I mean I knew it was collaborative then you see the teachers talking about you know I don't have a resource for this and someone else going oh that's not a problem I got this and the real um support amongst the teachers themselves um building that strength um I could see it then but to see the results is really impressive and I thank you for um bringing that data and sharing it with us Mrs Reed Mrs Reed Mrs re do you have any comments or questions can you hear me I can now okay perfect um I think I was muted maybe um thank you so much for the

028information and for the presentation I think um that was invaluable information to our parents in our community who um I hope is watching I know that um parents are always curious you know when we have our 90-minute really released to know what our teachers are doing and to see whether or not um that time that our students are away from the classroom if it's really um being applied in a positive way and I'm happy um that you were able to share this information so that we can share with our parents that it is being applied um in a way that is Meaningful and producing results um is there a plan to share this information out in an email um so that parents can see some of the data and also the new website um Miss

029Reed we we have shared the award um but um I think we can talk further about um more information that we could share out and provide to both our staff and to our parents perfect thank you so much and um thank you all so much for the time and the energy that you've put into this and thank you to all of our model teachers um that have um dedicated extra time to um just better the community you know when we rise the tide everybody um is is more successful so thank you so much for everything that you've done and that your team has done I really appreciate it and I'm going to say ditto to the thank you but I can't tell you how um important and exciting it is to see the data that

030shows um the improvements we are making on behalf of students and and that is for all students not just our students who need additional assistants but I know that our students who are normally doing well are also benefiting from this so it's such an exciting thing to see come to fruition in essentially two years of of work and when we had you know 15 months of that be under a pandemic um just speaks volumes about the work you all have done and all the teachers have done across our district so look forward to seeing that continued data um Coming forward thank you [Music] [Applause] all and we'll move on to our next district report which is the remaining school report and we'll have um turn that over to Dr zerbach I do believe that um

031this is our last remaining school report maybe I believe that is true president O'Brien there may be some tears um but uh there are tissues that are in the room okay uh good evening president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch uh it is our pleasure to provide uh what will likely be the last remain in school uh report we are going to jump right into our Community level of transmission metrics and with that I will ask Mr migo to jump in uh president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch as we have presented in each of these reports uh these are the metrics that Maricopa County uh Department of Health uh provides to us each Thursday uh morning and um there's not a significant change in the actual uh uh reporting uh so uh

032at this point our case count uh is at 78.57% uh so that uh continues to have us in the substantial category for percent positivity but uh in the moderate range for uh case count uh the next slide actually has the 7-Day epic curve and as we have indicated in these previous reports we use this for predictive modeling of what is going to happen with um the the metrics that we just looked at uh and you can see that line is um virtually flat uh for well over uh two months now um and so that is something that uh is uh I would say good news for us is the 7-Day epic curve uh remains um pretty much unchanged uh for some time I think this is uh just my personal opinion but I think this

033has mostly with the distribution of the vaccine and uh um so as the health professionals have have certainly reminded us the the vaccine is an important component uh to us uh getting back to what I would consider to be some form of normal and I know Dr zerbach will speak about that uh further in the report thank you Mr mcino our safety plan that is posted now on the website has been updated uh this is a snip from that particular website again for the community that is listening it has a very userfriendly URL it is simply dvusd.org ssafety plan uh the plan that had been up there for virtually the entire school year with a few updates along the way uh has been updated and revised for the summer programming and it captures uh the

034rules of the game if you will uh for all of our summer programming Community Education uh we have various programs through Community or excuse me curriculum instruction uh as well as Pathways and some others the most significant change that is reflected in the safety plan has to do with the face mask and so uh with our transition to a face Mas optional environment that went into effect uh today we also have updated three administrative regulations that speak to the face mask these three are posted here as sub bullet points it is J Ki and gbgb the jica speaks to the student dress Ki speaks to visitors on campus and gbgb speaks to staff and so all three of those administrative regulations speak again to the notion that face masks um are not required U but

035they are optional if staff uh or students or visitors so choose to do so there is an exception to this that has been Comm communicated in virtually all the communication that either I have sent out or uh communication from Mrs Moffett and myself and that has to do with Transportation there is an existing and standing CDC order and I want to be clear on that it is not guidance it is a CDC order for mass transit and it governs Public School busing and in that order it does mandate that mass must still be worn by drivers their assistants and any students that are on that bus the loan exception to that is when a driver is Alone um on a bus and so uh it's important to note that that exception is still in place

036and that is also on the safety plan okay as far as summer programming again as I mentioned there are several programs that are in place there are many of these are listed for this uh Mrs Moffett and I did conduct covid-19 Emergency Management training for the supervisors some of them or I should say really all of them uh did not do the regular covid management during the school year so these are folks who this experience will be new to and so we gave them uh a good overview of what to expect reviewed key documents and also talked about uh mandatory reporting procedures to the county uh if a case of covid-19 should arise and also uh we talked about the quarantine and isolation protocols uh as I have noted in the last board meeting and

037in the board updates that are required by uh State Statute and so we covered excuse me we covered what is uh required by uh both the county and the state with respect to uh those protocols okay as far as our vaccine update today if you got to see my tweets uh Constitution Elementary they this is their second year that they've had a community uh vaccination clinic and so the clinic not not only provided the covid-19 vaccine but it provided the opportunity for the community to get access to uh any of the child uh vaccines that are um needed for school and so we stopped by there they had a interpreter there to help with families uh who needed a translator in Spanish and there were many folks that came on by and so that was

038a great event I thank principal uh cheyana and her crew uh for working to set that up we are currently in talks with honor Health as as well onor health is wanting to support us with providing um access to the vaccine for those families that choose to do that in our Title One communities and so we'll continue to work with them as we do want to uh provide access to our families who are most in need and we'll continue to to do that we also may work with our County Partners and that is with Mar County Department of Public Health along with Safeway and fries if we uh Prov provide additional vaccination opportunities at one of our sites and so that um I will continue to report to you in the board updates and as

039a reminder the covid-19 vaccine is optional it is not a required uh vaccine for our students and nor for our staff okay uh next up is our summer feeding program uh Mr M do you want to jump in on this one uh certainly uh so uh this is just kind of update where we're at with uh our summer feeding uh we're basically running uh what I would consider to be two programs uh we will uh we will continue to run our curbside meal service uh starting next week on June 1st it'll go through July 1st um we have uh three school campus locations um and two bus stop locations that we will uh be providing those meals uh these are open to the public um so any um any student or anybody 18 years or

040younger uh can uh stop by and pick up a meal uh at the locations um the curbside meal locations that that's a link there um it's a URL dvusd.org food uh we'll take you to uh those locations for the curbside meal um we will also be doing on-site meal service uh at a number of campuses where we have uh summer enrichment programs uh ongoing and uh we have a list of those uh available so there's 14 campuses plus two um associate sites uh the I know I'm going to probably say this wrong the boo Center or however it's pronounced I apologize uh as well as the Deer Valley Community Center um will be providing meals uh for our students those again are not open to the public um for the bus stops I wanted to

041uh mention uh the picture in the lower right hand corner is our DV Diner bus uh so this is a bus that was uh decommissioned with was not um able to uh be certified by the Department of Public Safety uh for transporting students so we hope to be able to deploy the DV Diner bus um for the uh distribution the curbside uh distribution um at the two bus stop locations uh all of the uh feeding is going to be covered as the extension of the USDA summer food service program uh which is continued through uh all of next year at this point thank you Mr mcino and I would like to reiterate and highlight uh just one aspect that Jim spoke to and that's the notion that it is available to any of those students

042that are um 18 and under and so whether the students are from um Charter Schools private schools if they are homeschooled if they are in the homo daycare type pieces that meet the age um that the public school district is the one that uh leads the way with that and so just as we did in the beginning of the p pandemic and led the way uh with food distribution along with vaccine uh distribution uh the district will continue to do so uh in the manner that we have done in the past okay and with that I will ask my partner Dr G to take over return to learning Dr gallagan thank you over the past couple of board meetings there have been public comments uh some about critical race Theory so we wanted to be

043very clear about this idea critical race theory in Deer Valley it is not one that Deer Valley Embraces nor is it in any of our curriculum guides there are no plans to adjust this position in the future um we teach to the Arizona academic standards and and that is what our curriculum guides are built upon and that is what our courses are built upon um our board adopts resources and um anytime any changes would happen to curriculum based on standard standards um those come before the board and the board U makes decisions and approves any changes at this point in time critical race theory is not part of anything in Deer Valley um you can say that it may happen in classrooms and you know what if there is a topic that is brought up

044in a classroom and it is brought to the principal's attention it is dealt with immediately and we take care of that um through our HR processes and and then we communicate with our parents but as far as critical race theory in Deer Valley it is not existent um and we just wanted to make sure that each of you on our board were aware of that and felt confident thank you thank you Dr Galligan okay next up uh Mrs Moffet with return to work Jenna all right a few updates um of interest from Human Resources I shared with the board in the Friday update that our um administ ators districtwide schools and departments continue to plug away at filling vacancies this is on par with previous years um what we do know right now is gone

045are the days uh from about six years ago when we could report we were 99% staffed at this point in the year and that just isn't the case any longer so we continue to work at filling those vacancies um a point to bring up is that transfer ends the last cont contract day of our 10-month administrators so that uh transfer timeline will expire next week and then we will be filling certified vacancies from the outside um next slide Gary um we also sent a memo out I think Gary referenc this sorry for the feedback I'm do my best here um to share with staff some immediate changes that we made um around the work environment Gary mentioned mask optional we also um made sure that people understood that they could use communal areas and could

046um resume in using refrigerators ice machines which Dr gallagan is thrilled she loves the ice machine um and other appliances and then we also put forth some Gathering guidelines um for all of our supervisors that are organizing professional development opportunities or meeting um opportunities and then um also that masks are optional in vehicles we have many staff members that do have ride together in vehicles as part of their workday and masks in those Vehicles will be optional and that's uh the exception to that would be the bus as Dr zerbach outlined and then we're also working on some documents for the opening of next school year such as the managing covid-19 and the workplace document that will still need to exist but will require updating we will still require all employees to sign the telecommuting

047fors though there will be very um few employees that would qualify to telecommute you just uh never know and we want to be prepared and so that will still be part of the um annual documents reporting and responding guidelines will be updated site and portal will also be updated and then we do have employees that are currently working and will continue to work through the summertime so we do want to make sure that support um any covid situation at covid report. DB usd.org okay in our next slide we are going to um also make sure that folks are aware about our uh program at vistor Peak which is the medically fragile uh programming and Melissa do you want to speak to that son thank you Jenna for giving me the feedback mik good evening governing

048board president O'Brien Dr Finch thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak about this program option uh this is a very exciting topic for me and for student Support Services as well as Vista Peak uh we have been doing a lot of analysis and work in our futures work team and one of the ideas that came from our Behavior service model work team was the further expansion of viste school and so we're very excited to talk about an option uh to bring some of our students back from other private placements outside of the school district to receive instruction closer to home uh that is what uh the federal government provides us as guidance and so we're thrilled to be able to provide this opportunity our first focus of the classroom is grades

049K through three and we also have virtual um pardon me future vertical planning options uh so so we can make sure that our students are supported all the way through graduation and past transition so please know that uh you will stay tuned for further updates on this but we're hopeful to bring students back this fall starting 2021 and the location will be this to Peak and as a population this is one of the um most rewarding populations to work with I had the honor to work with this population for one year um in my teaching career and it was very fulfilling and so we're thrilled about this opportunity and some of this as well um important to note for the board uh was highlighted as opportunities within the Futures report as far as where uh

050the district could um make progress in the future thank you Dr mccusker thank you okay and with that that brings us to our last slide and before I turn it back to you president O'Brien I just would like to say um that it was uh great to see our senior classes graduate last week on Thursday and Friday I saw probably 2500 folks or so uh walk across that stage from our five high schools and it certainly brought quite a smile to my face and I know it did for you to uh to see the work that the staff and the students and the administrators did over the course of the school year and to see it culminate in such a uh great way in those ceremonies so with that uh we have finished and we

051will certainly entertain questions thank you so much Dr zerbach um Mrs Reed do you have any questions or comments I do can you guys hear me yes we can okay perfect um Dr zerbach um I did pull up the safety plan page on the district website and there's just one little typo that needs to be fixed regarding the date um underneath the visitor section um it still has the June 6th um date on there for face masks um so if you wouldn't mind just double checking that just to make sure that that we're on the same page because I I don't I know that we'll get emails um asking for clarification on that sure um but that was it thank you thank you Mrs Reed Mrs Fisher I've uh you're right we have gone back

052and forth with this critical race Theory um topic and I think it's because of well the asba training that that went out or that that happened um and that has hit a lot of other districts um and I came here tonight thinking well I'm going to defend your Valley and I'm still going to defend your Valley because I haven't I've looked at our curriculum I've looked through um I take what parents bring to me very serious and I have taken the time to look through and I don't find it in anything we've adopted I don't find it in anything um that is considered um that we're promoting or or putting out um however when I got here tonight I received an envelope from um parents of uh school I haven't gone completely through it but

053um it started with a big please help there's a teacher teaching 1619 um and critical race Theory please help us um so I I that's all I'm going to say about that because I'm going to scan it when I get home and send it um to Dr Finch and to yourself um but I want to reassure the parents that if um if there's a rogue teacher going out and teaching something that's inappropriate um it doesn't mean that the district has accepted it or has promoted it it just means that someone is stepping out of line um I guess the ask I would have for the district or for our Administration is I don't know if maybe we have need a better path um some of the parents that the the thing that I noted in

054the packet because I I've only briefly looked at the first couple of pages was that it was they didn't want to put their names um and we have over the years received Anonymous things because um parents are afraid of retaliation or um and and a lot of the the people will talk to me unless say well I I want to talk to you but I don't want you I don't want you to give my name I'm afraid I'm afraid my kids will face retaliation I'm afraid I will be ostracized um I don't know if we have I mean we did years ago have a Anonymous Reporting System U it was for something else but I I don't know if maybe we have that maybe it would help secure for our parents um just give them

055an Avenue um our parents just want to be heard and I was just like I said I was here ready to say it's period not here I even reviewed some curriculum that parents thought was questionable and I thought well it could be but you don't know how they're teaching it and and and I discussed it with a former teacher and and she said the same thing is you know yeah this you know it could be but but it doesn't necessarily mean it is so I just want us to be understanding um but I I want us to also find a way to give our parents a um secured way to report I guess I I I understand their fear I tell them all the time it's like you see me get doxed on there on

056on social media or on whatever I asked for it I ran for office I'm still going to call it out but parents didn't parents just want to fight for their kids and so I just ask that we um find a way to honor them um but I will like I said I'll send you the packet um that's all I can do Mrs [Applause] paperman thank you for the presentation and thank you Dr gallagan uh for uh presenting the uh critical race Theory uh I know as a teacher you know it's being very stressful with media and all we want to do is teach in peace you know teach to the academic uh also I just want to make sure that because another issue that's next sex education in the classroom I just want to make

057sure that de Valley is also not going to uh going to be uh teaching that [Applause] curriculum Dr G again Could you um explain what uh what de Valley does provide as it relates to um sex education president O'Brien Miss paperman we really do not we don't promote sex education in Deer Valley's public school system now with that said um in our ninth grade health courses as part of the state standards sex education isn't person say the standard but it it does look at reproduction reproductive systems and those types of things I believe u Miss Fischer reviewed our resources for um health and I feel confident again in saying that that we um don't teach sex education other than what we have for the standards in health um courses in our nth grade thank you

058Dr Galligan and if a parent wanted to review the resources or the materials that we use to teach that ninth grade health where might they find it president O'Brien they can always reach out to me they can reach out to Sheila in the superintendent's office we will make um the resources available for them to review here at the district office uh just as Miss Fischer did and and they would have that opportunity excellent and those emails um addresses can be found on the website than you so much so Brian May I just add that I did review it and if it helps Miss paperman um I didn't mention at the last meeting but it is what is in there is is none of the comprehens of sex education that is the the thing across the

059state it is not in Deer Valley it's not in our curriculum now that again not to say someone might go Rogue but it is um I reviewed in fact I reviewed it twice um and it is it it is a reasonable curriculum thank you Mrs paperman did you have anything else thank you for the clarification thank you Mrs orway appreciate that this is the last remaining school report because we are in school and we're going to stay there I'm guessing um when we receive Anonymous things there's usually two reasons for it one reason is that there is a fear of a repercussion and the other one is so uh fearmongering can take a seat and and go for a ride so I do appreciate and applaud uh Dr gallagan for uh taking um these things

060that have been put out there and addressing them headon um Miss Moffett could you go over a little bit um and then in more detail in a Friday update um when the when our teachers go through and get their certificate there are ways um for the or methods that they teach things that could be controversial you know like history or language arts so they are taught how to address something that could be controversial in a uh in a whole way in a 36 6 Dee Way [Music] correct president O'Brien miss or way um dep it's dependent upon their prep program but it is part of what we do with onboarding here in Deer Valley so we do um make sure that our our teachers understand that we do have adopted curriculum Dr gallagan and her

061Department put forward um Curriculum maps and other guidelines and that they are to stick to those maps and and guidelines in our district thank you thank you Mrs zway and Mrs Moffett sorry you put your microphone away just a little too quickly um because one of the things that was addressed is that if a parent does have a concern and it is vetted and found to be um that they have gone outside of policy guidelines curriculum um I know there are actions taken by HR could you explain a little bit about how that happens and about confidentiality president O'Brien um sometimes it is dependent on how the information is learned so there are specific processes that we follow if the information comes from the public versus information coming from um one employee to another but

062either way we are obligated to investigate it and to provide the employee with due process or the opportunity to present their side of the story and to be confronted with all the facts that we have um in investigated so depending on the infraction um any any infraction um has the possibility of anything from an Express directive which would be a um a direction to the employee that is non-disciplinary that they should not move forward with that type of behavior all the way up to termination really would be the um most severe consequence that could be issued to an employee for violating a policy and that typically would be um in the situation in this specific topic would be multiple violations or more than one at least and do we share um employee discipline with anyone

063um the the discipline itself is does remain confidential um but it that does not prevent us from disclosing to let's say a parent shared it we can disclose that indeed there was a violation we agree we've investigated we may disagree on some of the detail details we may agree on all the details um but we can share uh with the outcome what what the outcome to the investigation was not necessarily the outcome to the employee excellent thank you for sharing that um I would like to thank you all once again for a comprehensive report regarding uh remaining in school I I look forward to us no offense Dr zerbach not doing this anymore well they have been excellent I'm sure you all won't be any sadder or less sad more sad I'm not sure the

064right phrase there that we won't be doing these in in the future and as we start to return to um pre my pre pre-o Concepts all right with that we will go to our call to public we have two public comments and Mrs zway is going to read the statement the board invites public comment on the district's business in general and on any agenda item in specific speaker speakers are limited to three minutes to accommodate all speakers within the 30 minute overall limit board president May shorten speakers times vulgarity disruptive comments conduct remarks disrespecting employees by name will not be allowed the governing board cannot discuss or act on any items not listed on the agenda board members May respond to criticism asked staff to review a matter or request a future agenda item there

065are two of you David Alvarado and the there's a mic right right by the door and then Jessica tro if you would please state your name for the record um you'll have three minutes they'll show you the time on the screen up there and then thank you my name is can I raise [Music] this my name is David alberado thanks for the opportunity to express a little bit of what's already been mentioned tonight and that's on the topic of critical race Theory it's a topic that's uh making its rounds in the Public Square and I just uh as a community member as a grandfather a father as a former educator as a business person and as a proud American I see that this uh issue is really becoming more and more of a uh talking

066point and the discussions are not readily available to have a I would say a friendly discussion so I'm going to be as quick as I can there's two sides to this coin in regards to the definition where did this idea originate from critical race theories originates back in the 1970s as various legal Scholars including Derek Bell black civil rights lawyer who taught at Harvard School began to examine how the law and legal system served interests of the wealthy and Powerful at the expense of others critical race Theory also Al known as CRT became an official term in 1989 and the key tenants of this Theory most agreed upon by proponents are that racism is a common experience faced by people of color in the United States that is institutional in the United States and that

067it benefits white people the theory examines systemic racism as part of American life and institutions and how it can give white people an advantage therefore they use the terminology white privilege on the other side of the coin CRT is an ideology that is descendant of critical theory a school of philosophy that began in Frankfurt Germany back in the late 20s early 30s at the University of frankfurt's Institute of social research became known as a Frankfurt School it was one of the first if not the first Western Marxist schools pattern at the Marx Engles Institute in Moscow fast forward uh the Nazis did not like this and so people who were studying this we're very careful to erase the word Marxism from their research papers so as not to attract attention when they fled Europe and

068came to the United States I can go on and on with this you probably see the differentiation already it's a topic that is being squelched and we need to attack it head on just saying that we're not going to or it's not being implemented in the school district is not good enough because the other side says they want they take an inch and they get more the other side needs to say enough's enough we won't even bring it up I'm sorry but that's how it goes and so we need to be very careful on how we present this going forward thank you very much for your time thank you our next speaker is Jessica tro you please state your name for the record and then your time will begin my name is Jessica tro so

069we've been coming here for a few weeks trying to get you to listen don't you think that it's a problem that we're still coming and repeating the same things this district is my home it's my children's home and I didn't sign up for this I expect you all to do your job in educating my children and I don't know where that line got so blurry for you but it has we have become adversaries instead of Partners The Mask issue these policies you've created what this is not education you act like it's over but even in the room we're still limited to how many people we can have in here there's more space than for another 15 20 people if not more but we're still holding that line in more extreme Fashions than we need to

070you announced the summer program it seems like that's not going away for those kids my has a peanut allergy but I still let him choose the foods that he eats even things that have been processed with in a facility with nuts because eventually he'll be an adult and it's his right to choose what risks make sense for him health is our right as parents and individuals it's not an education policy none of this should be in the policy we've seen it we've seen the language it leaves It Wide Open that you guys can make changes subject effectively because there is no definitive thing it shouldn't be in the policy we live in a great District everybody has said it and and I know that there are a lot of parents worried and concerned that the

071district is hiding critical race Theory I don't I also am not yet convinced but the problem is the way the district is managing these concerns you were talking about parents reporting well how does the dist is the district aware of how often things get reported are you guys tracking it are you paying attention to it yes it could be a one-off it could be this teacher it could be that teacher but if you're just letting it happen at the schools you don't really know and that's what you said it's happening at the schools you're not tracking it you don't even know how often it's happening if you need to address it with all teachers that's an issue instead of working with these parents and validating their concerns and providing any kind of reporting you're in

072denial it's not happening here if you were proactive in the community and started working on a solution maybe things would get better unfortunately I don't really see that that's happening you run surveys and you don't show us the results you don't run surveys when we think it's important to you choose the same parents over and over to be in your committees you have zero transparency and you're trying to policy yourself into zero accountability we won't stand for this there are things you all have done that cannot be undone you allowed a teacher to resign who harmed a student multiple students you left his credentials in thank you for your comments your time is [Music] [Applause] up all right we will move on to consent agenda I would make a motion that the governing board approve

073consent agenda items 5 a through 5S do I have a second thank you I have a motion um all those in favor please say I I I I I any Nays hearing none the motion passes unanimously so we will now move on to action item 6A oh sorry all right uh I would make a motion that the governing board accept the administrator's recommendation to pre-approve the agenda as presented is there a second a second is there any are there any questions or comments from governing board members Mrs Reed you'll need to like unmute if you have some okay thank you thank you Mrs Reed if we'll have um any comments or discussion great thank you very much we'll call for the vote all those in favor please say I I I I any opposed hearing

074none the motion passes unanimously item 6B please the governing board accept what is oh there we go that the governing board accept are we done okay keep going make a motion that the governing board accepted your Valley Unified School District fy20 Financial audit and compliance questionnaire completed by hfield meech and Company and just a reminder when we get to the vote this is a roll call Vote Yes ma'am is there a second oh second thank you um Mrs mock president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch and guests I am honored to present the fy20 yes that is fy20 we are going back in time a year um even though we are mere months away from the 2122 school year and from finishing the 2020 20 2021 school year um we are now going to

075look at our financial audit the um compliance questionnaire and the single audit reporting package from fy20 those documents are typically finished uh in February or March and then we give our internal Auditors time to prepare our corrective action plan we had planned to just present this as a report to you this evening however this legislative session house build 2018 amended SE 15905 and most of those were grammatical changes but when we look at 15914 and compliance audits uh they added item H there which is a school district governing board or a charter school governing body shall publicly accept all Audits and compliant questionnaires by roll call vote this actually doesn't go into place until the audit's completed for fy21 but since we had plans to to bring it to you this evening we thought we

076would move it from um a report to an action item kind of as a trial run before I start on uh the audit itself I just want to thank uh let you know and thank all of our registar our accounting clerks our finance department our purchasing department there are so many individuals on the business side of the district who whose work is reviewed by the audit and the compliance questionnaire and want to thank them for the wonderful work that they've done our annual Financial audit typically provides us with three uh major uh reports our current uh Auditors are heinfeld Mee and Company and for fy20 they provided us with our comprehensive annual financial report or our caffer our uniform system of financial records compliance questionnaire and our single audit reporting package the caffer is now

077available on our budget for 411 website where all of our budget information is housed for public transparency uh we soon will place the usfr compliance questionnaire from fy20 and the single audit reporting package for fy20 as well Jenna you get the mic with feedback I get the one that randomly Cuts in and out the we're going to start with the usfr compliance questionnaire the compliance questionnaire has questions for 17 different categories and I counted there are approximately 176 questions worth of data that our Auditors go through on an annual basis you can see those categories there with an asct those were the five areas out of the 17 where Deer Valley un fight school district for fy20 received uh or were considered questions that had an area of non-compliance overall for fy20 uh heinfeld Mech

078provided us with the averages and the average was 16 um for all of those 17 uh six questions and we had 14 areas uh overall so I think we fared pretty well and we below the average um and from my point of view as well I just want to make sure that everyone knows that we don't consider audits as punitive uh we actually appreciate the feedback that we received from heinfeld Mech in our audits as opportunities for improvement uh we work very hard hard throughout the year using our internal Auditors and other systems we have in place to ensure compliance for all of our departments but sometimes we do miss things and so we uh appreciate the partnership we have with heinfeld M to help make sure that we are always improving our processes we're

079going to start with the first overall category we we had area of non-compliance we'll actually talk about three items under governing board and management procedures but only two of them were actually areas of non-compliance cents um thanks to our old friend covid we changed our meeting structure last year and unfortunately did end up with an area of non-compliance for our July 14th meeting specifically with our public comments we did correct that at our October 14th governing board meeting by reading a public statement um in case you're wondering about that July 14th date that actually is the 2021 school year and I asked the Auditors about that and um they actually had the opportunity to place that in either fiscal year but we thought it best to get it over with as far as the findings

080go and be done with it and put it behind us with our good friend covid as well uh another area of non-compliance we received for that area was conflict of interest statement was not on file for an employee who was also a vendor uh this particular employee was a an employee by coaching addenda only and was not an FTE employee with the district and so what we found was that we had not been giving our addendum employees only the conflict of interest statement that we provide to all of the rest of our employees at the beginning of the school year or the beginning of their employment so that is a change that is going into place uh for next year as well and I don't know for sure if we've already started it this year

081but we also are continuing to work with Department departments involved to prevent future occurrences some things that we can do are run checks on addresses and names between our vendor database our employee database and double check to make sure that we have that conflict of interest on file I do want to make note that for those of you who are up on your procurement law you know that in order to purchase from an employee that uh that company has to be procured through a sealed Bid And the Company in question here was procured by a sealed bid uh otherwise that probably could have been another component of the audit finding but in this case it was just that we did not have that conflict of interest on file this is our third item that really

082was not an area of non-compliance but if you look at the uh the multiple page compliance questionnaire and look at all the comments that were made you will find a comment under this item this item is specifically whether or not the district reported to the auditor general timely any areas of employee theft and indeed we caught and immediately reported uh an area of employee theft and it was for an employee who was using a PE card for personal purchases and was claiming them as distri purchases uh the employee supervisor caught the misuse uh it was a verified amount of theft of $197 we reported to the auditor general and the Phoenix police and accounts payable and internal audit have a process actually to identify misuse and to suspend those cards for users who are not

083using them appropriately for our purchasing cards in addition our internal Auditors are working on an administrative management guideline for uh proper and um quick reporting for any potential employee theft the next area uh for uh non-compliance was accounting records we have quite a few of them so this gives us opportunities for lots of Records to be checked during our audit and one of the areas of non-compliance was a journal entry that was tested was not signed uh one of the things that we took advantage of during covid was using the electronic journal entry work through work flow through our infinite Visions Financial software and with the infinite Visions Financial software each journal entry will show a date and time stamped who submitted it who approved it and then who posted it so we will have

084two to three layers of approval for each of those electronic journal entries occasionally we have a journal entry that's really large and will not work through that process and we work through those man and those receive manual approvals that one was an easy fix uh we had a couple coding errors uh that were non-compliance they were out of compliance with usfr chart of accounts we even though there are four listed these do only count for one area of non-compliance we had a minor grant funding uh coding error that was corrected in the current year and those were with some of the grant funds that came up at the end of the year uh for um Esser and some of the other Grant funds we did have two dispersements that inadvertently the wrong object code and

085we are now in the current year and moving forward using the correct object code same year refunds were coded as an expense uh versus a negative Revenue so we have made sure that within the accounting department that those who review uh refunds are making sure that we have the correct object code and we have the correct language in the refunds as well so that we know whether it should be uh an expense if uh it was a refund from the prior year or a negative Revenue and we just had a clerical error with one state aid payment uh where the revenue was coded to the wrong object code in addition to the fixes listed specifically for those four items our internal Auditors now have an annual review process for reviewing coding and changes to the

086usfr and implementing those changes for the following school year miss m could you real quick quickly just um explain what an object code is for those that may not know well I don't know how long we want to stay here for this board meeting but components to an object there are five components to an accounting code and the uh object code is the fourth set of four numbers or fourth set of numbers which is four numbers in the account code string and it basically tells you whether it's a revenue or whether it's expense and what type of expense whether it is software um Staffing you know whether it's Personnel um benefits Staffing purchase service um or a uh um I can't think of the capital items 6700s for Capital items which are your um uh

087other items as well but it just tells you what type of uh expense or revenue is coming in I appreciate that thank you thank you for the opportunity cash Revenue we had one area of non-compliance so I do want to give a shout out to all of our accounting clerks who out there in the schools we're dealing with c and the teachers as well uh there's a lot of money coming into the classroom in the schools on a regular basis and to have one uh finding you know we we don't like any findings but we're not unrealistic we know that we're going to have them from time to time so the one that we received for fy20 was the currency was not deposited timely which is in within five days of receipt all of our

088campuses are required to make a weekly deposit our internal Auditors test deposit for timeliness during their internal audits as well uh since our audit process only tests three schools per year and we have quite a few more than that we're making sure that we are going out to the schools on a regular basis to test those items we are also in the process of implementing the ability to accept electronic payments in our k6s k8s and middle schools already have at our high schools we believe that this will help with some of these audit findings as well credit cards and PE cards a ke card is a purchasing card and those are used uh specifically by staff for [Music] um sorry I want to make sure I have my notes um they're used in the place

089of a a PO or other purchasing uh process you can use them much like you would use a credit card but they have different guidelines different spending limits and just different ways to lock out certain purchases we did not have any findings for our PE cards but our credit cards which are specifically used for fuel uh we did have one area of non-compliance pecards are uh each PE card holder is required to have one training and one user agreement when the card is assigned to them credit cards on the other hand uh each person who may touch any part of the process for the credit card and that's from issuing the card to a school to processing the payments is required to complete an annual training and we do have an annual training uh video

090that's available to those folks who will use it but the Auditors found that for three individuals uh I think it was three out of 10 they tested uh whether or not they had that signed user agreement stating that they had watched the annual training those were not in place our internal Auditors are adding that review to their list of annual reviews as well so that they can test to make sure that those using those fuel credit cards have signed their annual user agreements student attendance reporting with with over 32,000 students give or take depending on the year it's not it's easy to see why this area is probably going to on an annual basis um could possibly have the highest amount of non-compliance we actually have had years in the past where we had no

091areas of non-compliance but considering fy20 and the way it ended um we actually were not uh disappointed or surprised by the results that we have here student absences uh this item SS for two of the areas of non-compliance the elementary middle school and high school those five students tested um that showed the absence is reported incorrectly are one of the areas and the high school CED which is a Career and Technical education District satellite which we are um had four students we have um student absence findings uh frequently and it's because we do use a calculator um for the students coming in and out midday that helps the regist and attendance clerks to know whether or not to Mark the student uh partially absent or fully absent for the day and um just sometimes we

092miss the Mark um the Middle School in elementary um I think the high school resulted in a zero a net zero um for the absences but um absences do not count against our ADM that doesn't stop us from trying to make sure that we're reporting correctly but um we just find these errors on uh continuing basis absences at high school are a little bit different as well because they're reported by period And So at the high school level they're taking a look at when the student came in or left During the period to determine whether um they were absent for that entire period part of that period or the entire day moving forward and since the high school CED students are in and out on a daily basis it is not uncommon to see more

093of those uh differentials um and these didn't the students tested didn't end with any more than I I think one or two absences uh over or understatement from what we should have reported this again is part of the uh internal audit when our internal Auditors go out to the schools CED satellite enrollment undetermined if it was reported correctly for one student and for one student exceeded 1.25 FTE this was a very unique situation that we don't expect to see happen again uh we had a student enrolled in a CTE um all of our students enrolled in CTE programs are allowed uh the district and the uh districts are allowed to claim a 1.25 FTE enrollment the findings in these cases sometimes we share those students with West Mech and if the enrollment we submit the

094enrollment based on how many courses the students enrolled in in Deer Valley and West Mech will do the same and regardless of if our records are accurate if between the two districts the Auditors cannot show validity that the student should have been enrolled in 1.25 programs or 1.2 FTE for the programs and the courses in which they are enroll we received the finding and the same thing would happen if they were uh the Auditors were um auditing West Mech and they found those same type of concurrencies um even if their records were correct they would receive the finding we did verify the enrollment for both of the students in these findings and we don't like it because our records were correct but uh we received the findings anyway one of them was very unique it

095was a student who was with us for week and our records were accurate but uh we do work very hard with our registrars and our lead registar to make sure that we are submitting the correct information another one that I might sound a little bitter about but um is our aoi minutes not reported correctly for three students all three of these students we chose not to submit the aoi minutes we would choose that because these students were already enrolled in four courses at the brick and mortar which qualifies them for a 1.0 FTE at the actual campus had we submitted the minutes for their Arizona online instruction or their aoi our Deer Valley online program we would have created a concurrency against ourselves and it would have been a part-time concurrency with our online program

096and that portion of the concurrency would have been funded at only 85% so had we done so we would have lost money however the finding stands and uh because we did not submit MIT any minutes for those three students proof of residency we had one file that was tested that resulted in two areas of non-compliance and it was a parent or Guardian documentation that did not agree with the provided documents I believe the name on the registration paperwork did not agree to the name on the identification provided our registrars work very hard they keep Tickler files actually and continue to follow up with parents throughout the school year whenever they have outstanding documentation but in this case we received a finding for those two documents not agreeing and then also submitting that student for ADM

097because we could not prove that they were an actual resident of the State of Arizona we had one withdrawal where it was entered into our student information system more than five working days from the date of Entry or the date of exit we have 5 days from entry or exit to get that information into our student information system which then links automatically to the state system our internal Auditors also test entry and withdrawal timeliness as part of their internal audit because again our uh external Auditors are only checking three schools per year so we want to make sure that we get ahead of that and we're testing each of our schools on a regular basis we did have uh some withdrawal dates where the withdrawal date was the not was not the last date of

098attendance and we had a couple where the students were withdrawn um PR to 10 consecutive unexcused absences we are required by law to withdraw any students that have more once they get to that 11th uh probably about the 10th day on the 11th day we would withdraw them back to the last date of attendance for those 10 consecutive unexcused absences withdrawal dates are uh we had a couple with uh the top uh the withdrawal date was not the last date of attendance the withdrawal date was entered no NOP can't read my own uh bullets there I apologize withdrawal dates should be entered for the last date of attendance uh we must withdraw the students with 10 consecutive unexcused and internal Auditors again check these items and all of the student attendance items as part of

099their student attendance reporting we also have also have a fantastic um lead registar who continually works with all of our registar and all the schools ongoing training for these processes as well the single audit reporting package thankfully this is only one slide compared to the compliance questionnaire which uh the compliance questionnaire clearly is the major portion of our uh external audit we're happy to report that our single audit reporting package which tests the compliance for our major federal programs this is a requirement of the Office of Management and budget in their compliance supplement and um this one's much easier in the opinion of heinfeld and meech dvusd in all material respects with the types of compliance requirements um that could have a direct and material effect on each of its major federal programs so basically

100we complied so that moves us into the current year of which we are nearly complete our work for our preliminary work for this year will start in mid July usually we like to start actually in April um testing some of those student attendance and registration files while um the registrars are still here um but we just were not able to adhere to the same timelines this year that we had for the past years so we're going to begin that work in mid July the school test work that we mentioned will start then in early August and the remaining test work will be completed at the district office typically between October and November our c as mentioned in one of the first slides is due to be completed by December 31st of each year and that

101compliance questionnaire and the SARP by the end of March then we expect uh to take that time between March and may for our internal Auditors to work on our corrective action plans and get those implemented and we plan to by the uh last board meeting in May for next year to bring the fy21 um compliance questionnaire and SARP to the board for acceptance um and not necessarily knowing the reasoning behind the change to the law brought about by HB 2018 the audit reports are what they are whether or not the governing board accepts it is not going to change the findings um but we hope that you appreciate the work that the internal and the schools are doing I feel like Josh is back there like you know just it's the gong it's it's wrap

102it up um and but we hope that you appreciate the work that we're doing uh implementing the changes to make sure that we have fewer than average findings on an annual basis I always say that the more nitpicky the audit findings get that means the better that we are doing because that low hanging fruit is out the door and I'll take any questions Mrs Reed do you have any questions no I don't thank you so much for the report thank you Mrs paperman no question thank you Mrs Fischer I just have a couple of comments um additionally what I looked I thought okay well there's small sample size and a lot of findings for these but then I realized this is not a bad audit at all I've seen it really isn't it's all it

103is it is it is minuscule things um and so long as you've addressed them with internal Auditors but I do want the public to know they're more than welcome to go to the auditor General's office and they can download the usfr from for 369 pages of lovely reading they can understand exactly what this all is with the questionnaire at the end um thank you for doing a good job and for taking the steps to fix any of the issues that um were found because no matter what they seem to always find something and even when you're right the Auditors do not change their mind Mrs orway thank you for the most beautiful auditor report and we will make sure we vote in a roll call thank you Mrs mock I do appreciate that so we

104will have a roll call vote Mrs fiser hi Mrs paperman I Mrs Reed I Mrs Ordway I and Mrs O'Brian I vote I are you talking well you said roll call so all right if we could have a um motion for action item 6 C wow that's so much fun okay so we will um ask the governing board to approve and accept the administration's recommendation to approve an additional hourly rate of $2 per hour for any bus driver driving a bus with students from May 24th through July 30th 2021 Mr mgina oh sorry may I have a second please second thank you so much Mr mler now uh president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch uh as we have shared with you on multiple occasions uh we have uh increased the uh number of

105opportunities for um uh summer academic enrichment and um in order to try and maximize uh the opportunities for students uh we have uh offered transportation services to be able to get those students students um to the locations where the services will be provided unfortunately um many of our staff members uh are not accustomed to working in the summer that drive buses and uh so as we reached out to many of them they they had alternative plans whether it was a different job or other commitments uh so in working with director Mesa uh it is his recommendation that we support that we increase the hourly uh rate of pay for the bus drivers so these would be bus drivers driving a bus with students uh so that we can cover the routes for those increased uh

106number of opportunities for students uh it is noted in the cover um that we will be funding this with some of the federal stimulus money from our Esser uh funds and um U knowing that Esser 3 requirement the the Third Federal stimulus has a requirement for a a student uh to address student learning loss this is one of the key components of the um increased number of enrichment programs that we're offering this summer uh so we're specifically targeting that because there is a 20% set aside within that stimulus package so I'd be happy to answering any any questions thank you Mr meino any questions or comments from board members hearing none I call for the vote all those in favor say I I I I any opposed hearing none the motion passes unanimously and we

107will move to action item 6 D oh I'll get in trouble if I don't vote first okay it's in there um I would move that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation and approve the certified and classified negotiated language second T to hold on one second we're not quite done I know oh sorry go ahead were please finish your motion oh you want me to start again I guess so I would move that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation and approve the certified and classified negotiated langu tentative agreement number 70 for 2021 2022 school year second please second thank you so much and then we will go to Mrs Moffett okay good evening again president O'Brian governing board members Dr Finch and audience uh Mr edenboro are and I are here today to present

108to you all the work that has been done over this last uh school year in the area of um language so a previous report I shared with you how the NST team work this one is specifically to the employee agreements I want to also recognize that the president of devesa is here stepen luns sitting behind me he worked very hard with Mr edenboro this year looking at not only specifically language but working on a couple couple of teams that had to do some pre-work for language this um year I also would like to recognize Harley kilman the dbea president he um did have plans to be here but he is not feeling well right now um but he did email me today to let me know that dve has ratified this agreement so the team

109for certified um Kim Crooks Britney Sutton sits on this team Harley and Kelly fiser the the um classified team Trevor Steve Jeff Kingsley J Copus Tim Yates Jennifer Fusco and Julie zel zel zelski sorry sorry Julie so we're gonna first go over um some certified recommendations for change many of these this last year and each year we take a look of the entire manual to see if there are anything things that need edited or updated they're not significant process changes rather just adjust ments to make the manual a little bit cleaner so that's what you'll see here on this specific um page is that the team recommended that we remove one of the definitions is that definition was put there to highlight um a leave conversion table that we put in many years ago I

110believe in the year 1213 that was placed in there team didn't believe it needed to be part of the definitions any longer um we also changed intervention Specialists to special education strategist that was a name change that quite a long time ago and never made it over to the manual and we also added General leave as another reason that someone would not lose um their longevity or their seniority um years of service in the next section under Improvement of instruction and teacher evaluation if you recall we did have an evaluation committee that came together earlier in the fall and that committee made a recommendation to the governing board statute did allow for the governing board to approve a practice for dear Valley that would allow for us to implement an alternative cycle for employees or

111certified teachers who had three years of Highly um effective performance evaluations and so the board did adopt that practice and that is now reflected in the certified manual this one um is a a more significant process change for us so under this section vacancies transfers and assignments um our part-time limited employee es these are employees that are hired um as part-time employees and do not receive continuing status because they are hired as part-time employees we do have employees that are part-time continuing employees those are employees who have been full-time certified employees for over three consecutive years if they reduce their contracts they become part-time continuing employees employees that we higher under a 1.0 FTE are always on limited status a little while ago uh maybe two is years ago the board did approve a practice

112where if an part-time limited employee was in a position for three consecutive years that they could obtain continuing status for that specific position if that position were to be eliminated then they would go back to part-time status that was one thing that we did to help our part-time limited employees another thing that they wanted consideration for would be to um be considered for employment prior to a position being opened up to the outside our current practice um a part-time limited employees is is considered with outside candidates and so we all agreed on the NST team that it would be appropriate and fair for us to offer employment to the part-time continuing employees prior to opening it up to the outside so you'll see a language change there a more significant change for us is what

113we are recommending we change for fall Staffing when we have a surplus I'll go to the next slide when it's time to Surplus the board may know um that in the fall we when we Surplus at a k6 campus we and we reduce a grade level for example we reduce a second grade classroom that it's the least senior person unless a more senior person volunteers themselves in the K3 section and in the 46 section and what that can cause is a domino effect so if the uh grade level reduced is second grade but the least senior person is in third grade then that means the third grade team is moving and the second grade team is moving and sometimes it can cause three grade levels to be impacted depending on how the dominoes fall so

114this has been a discussion for several years and the team did finally agree and it was ratified that we would reduce at the grade level where um it is needed so if it is second grade it would be the least senior teacher at second grade unless a more senior teacher at second grade volunteered themselves to go the thing that also that we added for those employees that is if at the time that we do Surplus that employee the employee indicates that they would like to be considered to return for the next year's Staffing cycle that we would indicate that on the par and remember that that was their desire and that they could have consideration to return as part of um the reassignment timeline um in the spring Staffing that was mostly um considered because

115we do have campuses where employees have been there for a very long time so the least senior teacher could be a teacher that has been on that campus for 10 years because everyone's been there you know for a long while the um employee Fringe benefit section was updated really to reflect what we do uh in current practice you'll see that this is paralleled between the certified manual and classified manual but General leave is a pretty significant change so I'm uh I'll let U Mr edenburgh speak to this one um we both will uh a couple of things that I just want to highlight for you um reasons why we looked at this for General leave was that a a handful of years ago with the passage of prop 206 it changed our practices around leave

116allocation and it also um dictated um new rules around when we could ask for doctor's notes or how an employee could take sick time and our manuals or how we all not how we allocate leave but how we monitored leave had to change and we made some recommendations in our um language at that time but because of some other things as well that Mr uro will speak to he worked with Chris castanza on forming this language as well as a work team that formalized what we should do moving forward and uh proposed that to the NST so I'll let him go over that so this is a parallel between uh both employee groups but um in the past a teacher or classified staff member would receive a bank of sick time so a 9-month employee

117might receive 12 days of sick time from which they could take five days of personal time um because of those changes to proposition 206 and how we manage potential abusive leave um proposition 206 specifically um noted that there were 40 hours of sick leave required that needed to follow the the rules for um monitoring abuse of sick leaves specifically when you could ask for a doctor's note what counted as sickle um in addition uh as we talked with uh employees especially the there was occasion that the limit of five personal days became difficult um because they might have a wedding or something that took a sixth day and if they are going to be honest about how they're using their time then they would take the day without pay when otherwise it might have been

118approved so by um not changing the amount of a leave that an employee receives but rather reclassifying it the five days of sick leave are awarded upfront so everybody when they start has days that they may use um but the general leave in the balance to the same amount as before is acred throughout the year it has an additional benefit because we had every year for the past few years previously um awarded all of that leave up front awarded they didn't earn it we just gave them access to it upfront employees had access to it upfront but if an employee used all 12 or 16 days depending on whether they were nine or 12 months before they had accured those we had to seek the repayment of that leave and at times because the bank

119was large as as it was awarded up front that um was more than the balance of pay and so at on separation they would owe they would owe the district back money and so to prevent that from happening we award 5 days up front because the pay period is 10 um employees continuing generally do Bank their leave as before um all of the other processes that applied to what we called sick leave so um buyback of leave and acral of leave remain however they are applied to General leave so an employee who does not use any of their leave for the course of the Year those five sick days become General days that are accessible to them at the beginning of the following year and they're awarded five sick days upfront in that following year

120okay a couple of other thing in the benefit area we edited long-term disability and change short-term disability and that is specifically because we offer short-term disability to our employees they also can purchase additional short-term disability and our employees do have the option of purchasing or obtaining long-term disability through um asrs we also showed under um dental care insurance we added some specific um language to point out what full-time status is so underneath the certified manual It should read and we see here that it doesn't it 6 FTE where for classified staff it should say 6 hours or more would equal full-time status and then another change that um the certified team recommended is the rate of pay that a teacher should receive for teaching during the summertime the team agreed that we should use the

121same rate that we use for Teacher um class coverage during the contract year should be the again the same rate that we pay during the summertime so we took one formula that already exists out of the certified manual for classroom coverage and we placed it here instead for summer rate of pay it makes it more comparable to what other districts were doing and what we felt um a teacher would be doing during the summer is really the same thing that they're doing during the school year when they're teaching a class and then this is a committee that no longer exists in practice in our district and and we are thinking back in time and believe that it might be 14 years since this committee actually um was Ena action so this is recommended to be

122removed from both manuals and then updated changes under phased retirement most some of them are edits but the meat of this change has to do with um to accurately reflect guidelines out of ACA and that is that employers are to offer benefit eligible employees insurance and we um our our employees who have retired through DVD and are eligible for that benefit where we cover them until they are 65 but they receive that benefit through the Arizona State Retirement System we've left them um receiving that benefit over there and now we offer them either to stay with asrs or to come back over to us if they do choose to come back over to us then they would lose the benefit with asrs so an employee who I don't know is 55 may not want to

123choose to come over to us because they would continue to receive that benefit until they are 65 if the employee were maybe 64 or over 65 they may not um they likely would take our benefit because they would no longer be covered under the bed clause and then U Mr Edinburgh will go over classified changes thank you this first change in section 11 is just reflecting um when a new hire would receive a raise that's been approved by the board and so after that date that the raise is approved and the contracts for the or I'm sorry appointments for the following year are processed employees hired after that in the following year will not receive the raise but rather the new starting rate um it's also to distinguish between um longevity uh this would affect

124primarily employees hired in the month of April May June June um right at the end of the school year um and prevent somebody from coming in one week and then um receiving the raise that somebody else who worked the duration of the Year received at equivalent in section 12 we just clarified that our classified employees who come out for an Emer who report to work for an emergency call outside of their work time will be compensated for at least 2 hours this has been current practice for quite a while but wasn't documented in the manual most often this is a plant for responding to an alarm call however it can also be um a a a facility's employee responding to an emergency often they take more than two hours anyways but in the case that

125it's two hours to come and turn off the alarm and check the campus we assure them two hours um and with regards to um overtime and compensatory time we just removed the work week begins on Wednesday and ends on Tuesday we nobody hopes that it changes but we published the work week on the calendar and in the past when the work week did change we missed it in the manual and so as we talked as a team we decided to pull it from the manual because we Define it in the calendar and then we won't have to remember to go back if it were to change um in section 19 this is uh this is the same as in the in the certified manual um in the retirement program we did clarify that part-time employees

126with no breaking service are eligible for the grandfathered benefit with regards to start date so that means if an employee worked for us for SE for seven years they're eligible after 15 years of full-time service if an worked for us for seven years and went full-time and went part-time for 2 years and then worked full-time for 8 years they would still be eligible for the de valy retirement benefit those two years of part-time service do not count as a break-in service provided they continued to be our employees that language was there previously but it did not say regard to start date so literally it would have read that um part-time employees were eligible for the same retirement program but that was not the intent nor the practice um classified staff who are hire who are

127employed for four hours per day or more are credited with 40 hours of sick leave so this next part is the sick leave and the general leave it is the same as um we mentioned before in the certified manual and then in section 19 this also matches the certified manual the what we had previously called long-term disability is actually short-term disability that takes effect after 90 days employees can um choose and have been able to for the past several years to um at their own expense pay for a uh uh short-term disability at a shorter span and are all eligible for longer for long-term disability through asrs and this also matches the certified manual um and it's just uh clarifying that these benefits are are available to classified employees working six or more hours um

128and the the language about uh the insurance committee becoming the benefit work team this is the same as in the class as in the certified manual it's no longer the committee is no longer there and so it was removed and um the phase retirement changes are also the same the classified manual had at the end near in the appendix uh a listing of all district office divisions and departments that we decided was obsolete it often changes after the manual is approved and it is published on the portal now and so we removed it thank you so much Mrs Reed do you have any questions or comments no I do not thank you for the report thank you Mrs paperman no questions thank you Mrs Fischer with um do we have a cap on our leoc

129cruls president O'Brien Miss Fisher no we do not have a cap on leave cruel with the exception of the Deputy superintendent so what's the potential liability do we know what for our long-term employees uh president O'Brien Miss Fischer uh the acred liability for um for accumulated leave it is in our cafer I don't have the amount but we would be happy to provide it to the board okay um I'll take a look because that that would be the only thing I would be concerned with I know that um a lot of CI States counties because you do allow to roll over and over by the time you know you have a 20-year employee that rolls their their leave year after year and they retire and end up with $75,000 payout um to put into an

130HSA or something and sometimes it's beneficial but if we're carrying that liability it could be problematic for us as a district um especially as the the regulations change in the atmosphere of our finances um so that would be my only concern um thank you for the report Mrs zway uh Miss Fischer that's something that we bring up every year and uh we get our numbers so at some point in time perhaps it's a just you know it's a a conversation I don't know is a conversation that I I appreciate our um educated administrator sharing no that's what I'm saying each year we ask that question because I know that um it can and has for municipalities so on and so forth uh broken their Banks so um at some point in time Mrs O'Brien we

131could talk about that um other than that I think Trevor when you gave us your example with your numbers that you were trying to trick us because you thought it was late but we we understood your little example and your formula so I appreciate everyone's time and I see somebody over there wave are you the only one left you are thanks for all your time put into that um I would like to thank you all for the report but I want to make sure that our committee members know um we appreciate the time and effort they put in in going through this and making sure that we have those changes and I've so noted that agenda request item um for Mrs fiser and Mrs Ordway all those in favor of um approving the agreements for

132certified and classified please say I I I I any Nays hearing none the um motion passes unanimously we've already uh passed 6E we'll move into governing board reports and we'll start with um Mrs paperman I would like to say that I had a fantastic time at the high school graduation this was my experience and uh Dear Valley did an a great an amazing job on the setup and the students how everything it went very well uh also uh the teachers I know this is our last week I hope uh and staff I hope that you have a restful summer and recover and get ready for the new year thank you Mrs [Music] fiser I'm going to say something everybody in this room is going to think no one would ever say I really miss Ron

133bear at the graduations we did not count cowboy boots at all I just forgot to do it but um the the graduations were wonderful um one of the things that we used to really enjoy with Mike and Ron was uh noting what was the best speech of everything um and of course counting the cowboy boots um but I have to say that the the best speech really did hit me this year um we had a student sorry I'm blind as a bat Tony Ruan I'm sure I'm saying his name wrong he was did the senior address from Mountain Ridge High School and I have to say that that young man is going to be a motivational speaker no matter where he goes I that his his speech gave me chills um it just just listening

134to him and um he was just amazing I can't just can't say any more about how amazing his um his speech was they were all great but his was just that one in a million um I do want to thank everyone who set up the graduations um I know it was difficult I'm glad that the kids were able to take their masks off for pictures and whatnot um because I don't know it's going to really help their their pictur and and their memories um I want to thank Jenna Moffet uh for providing information regarding the substitute uh pay and the Open Enrollment uh from elementary to Junior High Junior High to high school um do we have I and I want to just ask if we have a basic time frame of when they um

135when the parents will know the parents that had reached out to me their their concern their her daughter felt very unstable because she just didn't know if if she would be um accepted or not so do we do we is it before the end of the school year that they know yeah if they're going like from our elementary our Junior High into High School are they and so they want to open en roll say with the the class kids they've gone to school with will they know before the end of the year president O'Brien Miss fiser yes they will uh if if an application has been subm admitted they're going to know the status of their application uh very soon so whether it be denial acceptance or weight list okay that way I can reach

136out back to the parents I do thank you for the information you provided but then I want to reach out back to them um I also received questions regarding 504 students um and I didn't hear back um if those parents still had questions um so if I don't know if there's a place on a we on our website so for parents who maybe their children weren't identified that needed help but they think their kids need help who do they reach out to would that be Miss mccusker I see you shaking yes so so I'll send them your way um the the I have two just two more brief things um in the Friday updates um you know there they're often dismissive towards the parents that comment here or um they know a lot of misinformation

137I just want to note that when it comes to what a person believes it's often based on their own experiences or their perception um right or wrong it's how they feel you cannot say someone you know your feelings wrong um it's what they feel and it's the perception they have um I just really hope that we can be a little bit more mindful of our parents um I know I'm very defensive when it comes to my kids you know you you can do whatever you want to me you can do what you know hit my husband or my kids yeah Mama Bear comes out and that's what our parents are doing um they're not trying to be misinformed they're not trying to share misinformation and it's not even misinformation if it's what they've experienced it's

138their experience um so I'm just asking that we be mindful not to diminish what they go through and what they're feeling um my final thank you is for the uh community members who continue to send me the screenshots from the cyber bullying sites um and the new uh commenters um I am going to start a series of about cyber bullying and what is one of the number one things is to document all activity um and whoever it is and and I was going to kind of comment on who it was because it was disturbing to me but I'm not going to because that just gives her more ammo um but we we need to really start looking at what we do because our kids do follow and and we can't address the kids um being

139hateful to each other when we are hateful to each other as well and sometimes that's just saying well you said this it's not really what that person said it's the way you interpreted it so ask if something I say to anybody if if you feel it's one way or another ask me ask me for clarification I will happily give it we all know that I have no problem Being a Wallflower and not telling you what I mean um and I welcome you to tell me I'm wrong and to go ahead and convince me why I am um because I do value all of our district uh staff and I mean District the whole District um so um if you see something say something not just for bullying for for suicide for other actions but for

140for what somebody says about ask the questions um and get real answers the the the online gossip the behind thes scenes gossip it has to stop because it hurts our district all of them from the kids up so that's my report for the week Mrs Reed thank you um it was really nice to be in person for graduation so thank you to uh Mrs Myers for all of the hard work that she's put in um over the last several months to coordinate with everything um between the district and the stadium um and you know it I know there were um a couple of of inside jokes that we had about you know it it's go time when Mrs Myers puts on her heels um but uh I appreciate um all of her enthusiasm so thank

141you so much for that um a big thank you to all of our teachers and administrators that were out there to support the seniors it was nice to see um that show of support from faculty and congratulations to all of our 2021 graduating seniors and congratulations to our 2022 incoming seniors because now you're officially um a senior um also just want to say thank you to um the the staff for putting on um great eighth grade uh promotion celebrations and for the parents who um were able to um celebrate their um eighth graders with parties afterwards so that was great to see on social media as well and um I hope that everybody has a great summer and is able to refresh and recharge over the next two months so we can start the new

142school year off on a great note thank you thank you Mrs Reed Mrs zway graduations were awesome but I'm going to go backwards to the eighth grade promotions and I got to be there at the right time for kindergarten to be promoting too so at gav and Peak this year they had the eighth graders la the sidewalks and those star almost first graders got to be um doing uh you know walk through it so I think there are so many things um from this time of covid that we have done because we've had to and maybe some of that stuff we'll want to keep because we want to um it it was nice so you go to the graduations and yes Karen had everything going um the the students who spoke who sang who played

143the drums who did the guitars um who stood there and and held hands with each other through this their four years was not typical and I'm H hoping that it doesn't become typical um they were just awesome unsung heroes of every graduation the readers of the names I hope you're watching because we appreciate the way you read the um I'm so proud of the resolve this District had um to resist uh what might have been considered the easy way to do things um the consistency of our continuous Improvement um shows everywhere it showed at the graduations with the accomplishments our students had whether they be um enlisting in the military whether it be because they were in RC and the going to start their officer training um the millions and millions of dollars that um

144our students earned that was not given to them for everywhere from culinary arts um to biomedical four years paid for or not those who are going to um continue their jobs that they've already had to our students that graduated from college a few days or weeks before they graduated from high school that is the fruit of the labor of this whole District family so I'm not going to cry like our student advisory council person facilitator did but I will afterwards I I am just so proud to be Associated and to be a small part of what we do for kids in this District so thank you very much and on to you Mrs O'Brien thank you Mrs orway um I too would like to give a shout out de Valley Middle School did a great

145job with their um promotion it was awesome they had a the band was able to play their student speaker was very inspiring I I imagine we'll see him uh in some prominent roles uh in his high school years um the graduations in in person again were wonderful um they're all special I will say that you know we had Deer Valley High Schools First and uh gave me goosebumps and made me cry I didn't have tissue on the stage that's not a good thing I wasn't wearing waterproof mascara but it was very special um because they were the first one and so that was wonderful but not to be outdone by the Boulder Creek um High School National Anthem speaker whose music didn't get played and she um sang it without it and she did an

146incredible job so her courage and strength wow that was amazing only to be followed by mountain ridges High School graduation where I wasn't sure they were ever going to leave after they were able to move their tassels um and their School fight song was played it was just really an incredible moment I I I'm not sure they were ready to depart knowing that uh you know this was the end of an incredibly challenging and inspiring year for all of them at Mrs Meers did an incredible job as usual uh making sure things ran smoothly under incredibly different circumstances this year I was able to uh attend with with all the other board members the pursu pursuing Victory with honor it was a great job to uh be able to uh recognize our high school um

147athletes and coaches and schools for they what they had accomplished and I look forward to to including back our um junior high students into that program next year I would like to also comment that I was able to participate in a um Zoom meeting with uh US Secretary Cardona and had an opportunity to share with him that I felt it was incredibly important as the federal government um continued to look at the pandemic or any other issues that they REM remember that uh local control is incredibly important we know our community best that while they might want to issue guidance that that it should be guidance so that we can make the decisions that best suit our community um and finally again I want to speak to I understand when parents might want to um

148report something Anonymous or stent student that's important that we acknowledge those um reports and follow up on them however we do have to have some details there are times when we receive Anonymous um complaints that there's not enough to to move forward with um you I have to have we as governing board members or as staff members uh the superintendent the cabinet your principal who whoever you or the hotline the anonymous hotline you must at least start with a school um a grade you know I I we have to have some idea where to start we have 39 schools nearly 4,000 employees and and over 32,000 students we want to Advocate on behalf of you know our students and our families so please give us a place to start um if you feel the need

149to report anonymously I feel very strongly my role in dear started as an advocate for my children and for other children and and for parents who said I'm too afraid to go forward so please give us a place to start um thank you for getting the things updated for our summer uh uh programming going forward with all the changes related to the mass policy and I do hope our teachers and staff and students rejuvinate this summer um and come back refreshed for a 2021 22 school year and Dr bench I also too want to thank uh uh the graduation teams that put those together and obviously um she's done a nice job there um I wanted to give a shout out again to Nick and Aiden um they didn't really go into U much detail

150from the student student superintendent advisory Council but um imagine trying to convince your peers who you cannot see and so you're using email cell phone Zoom to convince them that this is an important project and for those I had a team that did a really nice job but those two stood out above them all they we always counted on them when the chips were down and we had to produce a video by a certain time and everything was was very um compressed so I'm really proud of those too and Aiden's going to be a big part of next year as well and as Miss o mentioned Miss BBY did a great job this year what we obviously I threw her a curveball and she was ready and uh we guided the kids towards something that

151was productive and will help us in the future uh as we talk about the importance of social emotional learning and how we need to teach kids to fish not fish for them and so as we teach them skills how to handle their emotions um these videos were very good teachers for that so again thanks to Aiden and Nick and just a reminder that um we are Ed our educational budget is in the is in the tennis court and your opinion is still important so feel free to contact your legislators we do through EFG and ASA and the governor's office to get our two cents in but uh that looks like that's coming to the finish line here soon so please feel free to contact your legislator and tell them to support public education thank you

152do I have a motion for adjournment I would make a motion that we adjourn at 9916 second all those in favor please say I I down s motion carries unanimously